CHAPTER XIII
THE FIRST TRICK
The Mallathorpe family solicitor shook his head impatiently under thosequestioning glances.
"It's not a bit of use appealing to me to know what it means!" heexclaimed. "I know no more than what I've told you. That chap walkedinto my office as bold as brass, half an hour ago, and exhibited to me apower of attorney, all duly drawn up and stamped, executed in his favourby Mrs. Mallathorpe yesterday. And as Mrs. Mallathorpe is, as far as Iknow, in her senses,--why--there you are!"
"What is it?" asked Eldrick. "A general power? Or a special?"
"General!" answered Robson, with an air of disgust. "Authorizes him toact for her in all business matters. It means, of course, that thatfellow now has full control over--why, a tremendous amount of money! Theestate, of course, is Miss Mallathorpe's--he can't interfere with that.But Mrs. Mallathorpe shares equally with her daughter as regards thepersonal property of Harper Mallathorpe--his share in the business, andall that he left, and what's more, Mrs. Mallathorpe is administratrix ofthe personal property. She's simply placed in Pratt's hands an enormouspower! And--for what reason? Who on earth is Pratt--what right, title,age, or qualification, has he to be entrusted with such a big affair? Inever knew of such a business in the whole course of my professionalexperiences!"
"Nor I!" agreed Eldrick. "But there's one thing in which you'remistaken, Robson. You ask what qualification Pratt has for a post ofthat sort? Pratt's a very smart, clever, managing chap!"
"Oh, of course! He's your clerk!" retorted Robson, a little sneeringly."Naturally, you've a big idea of his abilities. But----"
"He's not our clerk any longer," said Eldrick. "He left us about a weekago. I heard this morning that he's set up an office in MarketStreet--in the Atlas Building--and I wondered for what purpose."
"Purpose of fleecing Mrs. Mallathorpe, I should say!" grumbled Robson."Of course, everything of hers must pass through his hands. What onearth can her daughter have been thinking of to allow----"
"Stop a bit!" interrupted Eldrick. "Collingwood came in to tell me aboutthat--he's just come from Normandale Grange. Miss Mallathorpe complainsthat Pratt called there yesterday in her absence. That's probably whenthis power of attorney was signed. But Miss Mallathorpe doesn't knowanything of it--she insists that Pratt shall not visit her mother."
Robson stirred impatiently in his chair.
"That's all bosh!" he said. "She can't prevent it. I saw Mrs.Mallathorpe myself three days ago--she's recovering very well, and she'sin her right senses, and she's capable of doing business. Her daughtercan't prevent her from doing anything she likes! And if she did what sheliked yesterday when she signed that document--why, everybody'spowerless--except Pratt."
"There's the question of how the document was obtained," remarkedCollingwood. "There may have been undue influence."
The two solicitors looked at each other. Then Eldrick rose from hischair. "I'll tell you what I'll do," he said. "It's no affair of mine,but we employed Pratt for years, and he'll confide in me. I'll go andsee him, and ask him what it's all about. Wait here a while, you two."
He went out of his office and across into Market Street, where the AtlasBuilding, a modern range of offices and chambers, towered above theolder structures at its foot. In the entrance hall a man was gilding thename of a new tenant on the address board--that name was Pratt's, andEldrick presently found himself ascending in the lift to Pratt'squarters on the fifth floor. Within five minutes of leaving Collingwoodand Robson, he was closeted with Pratt in a well-furnished and appointedlittle office of two rooms, the inner one of which was almost luxuriousin its fittings. And Pratt himself looked extremely well satisfied, andconfident--and quite at his ease. He wheeled forward an easy chair forhis visitor, and pushed a box of cigarettes towards him.
"Glad to see you, Mr. Eldrick," he said, with a cordial politeness whichsuggested, however, somehow, that he and the solicitor were no longermaster and servant. "How do you like my little place of business?"
"You're making a comfortable nest of it, anyhow, Pratt," answeredEldrick, looking round. "And--what sort of business are you going to do,pray?"
"Agency," replied Pratt, promptly. "It struck me some little time agothat a smart man,--like myself, eh?--could do well here in Barford as anagent in a new sort of fashion--attending to things for people whoaren't fitted or inclined to do 'em for themselves--or are rich enoughto employ somebody to look after their affairs. Of course, thatNormandale stewardship dropped out when young Harper died, and I don'tsuppose the notion 'll be revived now that his sister's come in. ButI've got one good job to go on with---Mrs. Mallathorpe's given me heraffairs to look after."
Eldrick took one of the cigarettes and lighted it--as a sign of hispeaceable and amicable intentions.
"Pratt!" he said. "That's just what I've come to see you about.Unofficially, mind--in quite a friendly way. It's like this"; and hewent on to tell Pratt of what had just occurred at his own office."So--there you are," he concluded. "I'm saying nothing, you know, it'sno affair of mine--but if these people begin to say that you've used anyundue influence----"
"Mr. Collingwood, and Mr. Robson, and Miss Mallathorpe--and anybody,"answered Pratt, slowly and firmly, "had better mind what they aresaying, Mr. Eldrick. There's such a thing as slander, as you're wellaware. I'm not the man to be slandered, or libelled, or to have mycharacter defamed--without fighting for my rights. There has been noundue influence! I went to see Mrs. Mallathorpe yesterday at her ownrequest. The arrangement between me and her is made with her approvaland free will. If her daughter found her a bit upset, it's because she'dsuch a shock at the time of her son's death. I did nothing to frightenher, not I! The fact is, Miss Mallathorpe doesn't know that her motherand I have had a bit of business together of late. And all that Mrs.Mallathorpe has entrusted to me is the power to look after her affairsfor her. And why not? You know that I'm a good man of business, a reallygood hand at commercial accountancy, and well acquainted with the tradeof this town. You know too, Mr. Eldrick, that I'm scrupulouslyhonest--I've had many and many a thousand pounds of yours and yourpartner's through my hands! Who's got anything to say against me? I'monly trying to earn an honest living."
"Well, well!" said Eldrick, who, being an easy-going andkindly-dispositioned man, was somewhat inclined to side with his oldclerk. "I suppose Mr. Robson thinks that if Mrs. Mallathorpe wished toput her affairs in anybody's hands, she should have put them in his.He's their family solicitor, you know, Pratt, while you're a young manwith no claim on Mrs. Mallathorpe."
Pratt smiled--a queer, knowing smile--and reached out his hand to somepapers which lay on his desk.
"You're wrong there, Mr. Eldrick," he said. "But of course, you don'tknow. I didn't know myself, nor did Mrs. Mallathorpe, until lately. ButI have a claim--and a good one--to get a business lift from Mrs.Mallathorpe. I'm a relation."
"What--of the Mallathorpe family?" exclaimed Eldrick, whose legal mindwas at once bitten by notion of kinship and succession, and who knewthat Harper Mallathorpe was supposed to have no male relatives at all,of any degree. "You don't mean it?"
"No!--but of hers, Mrs. Mallathorpe," answered Pratt. "My mother was hercousin. I found that out by mere chance, and when I'd found it, I workedout the facts from our parish church register. They're all here--fairlycopied--Mrs. Mallathorpe has seen them. So I have some claim--even ifit's only that of a poor relation."
Eldrick took the sheets of foolscap which Pratt handed to him, andlooked them over with interest and curiosity. He was something of anexpert in such matters, and had helped to edit a print more than once ofthe local parish registers. He soon saw from a hasty examination of thevarious entries of marriages and births that Pratt was quite right inwhat he said.
"I call it a poor--and a mean--game," remarked Pratt, while his oldmaster was thus occupied, "a very mean game indeed, of well-to-do folklike Mr. Collingwood and Mr. Robson to want to injure me in a matterwhich is no business of theirs. I shall do my duty by Mrs.
Mallathorpe--you yourself know I'm fully competent to do it--and I shallfully earn the percentage that she'll pay me. What right have thesepeople--what right has her daughter--to come between me and my living?"
"Oh, well, well!" said Eldrick, as he handed back the papers and rose."It's one of those matters that hasn't been understood. You made amistake, you know, Pratt, when you went to see Mrs. Mallathorpe yesterdayin her daughter's absence. You shouldn't have done that."
Pratt pulled open a drawer and, after turning over some loose papers,picked out a letter.
"Do you know Mrs. Mallathorpe's handwriting?" he asked. "Verywell--there it is! Isn't that a request from her that I should call onher yesterday afternoon? Very well then!"
Eldrick looked at the letter with some surprise. He had a good memory,and he remembered that Collingwood had told him that Nesta had said thatPratt had gone to Normandale Grange, seen Esther Mawson, and told herthat it was absolutely necessary for him to see Mrs. Mallathorpe. Andthough Eldrick was naturally unsuspicious, an idea flashed across hismind--had Pratt got Mrs. Mallathorpe to write that letter while he wasthere--yesterday--and brought it away with him?
"I think there's a good deal of misunderstanding," he said. "Mr.Collingwood says that you went there and told her maid that it wasabsolutely necessary for you to see her mistress--sort of forcedyourself in, you see, Pratt."
"Nothing of the sort!" retorted Pratt. He flourished the letter in hishand. "Doesn't it say there, in Mrs. Mallathorpe's own handwriting, thatshe particularly desires to see me at three o'clock? It does! Then itwas absolutely necessary for me to see her. Come, now! And Mr.Collingwood had best attend to his own business. What's he got to dowith all this? After Miss Mallathorpe and her money, I shouldthink!--that's about it!"
Eldrick said another soothing word or two, and went back to his ownoffice. He was considerably mystified by certain things, but inclined tobe satisfied about others, and in giving an account of what had justtaken place he unconsciously seemed to take Pratt's side--much toRobson's disgust, and to Collingwood's astonishment.
"You can't get over this, you know, Robson," said Eldrick. "Pratt wentthere yesterday by appointment--went at Mrs. Mallathorpe's own expressdesire, made in her own handwriting. And it's quite certain that what hesays about the relationship is true---I examined the proof myself. It'snot unnatural that Mrs. Mallathorpe should desire to do something forher own cousin's son."
"To that extent?" sneered Robson. "Bless me, you talk as if it were nomore than presenting him with a twenty pound note, instead of its beingwhat it is--giving him the practical control of many a thousand poundsevery year. There'll be more heard of this--yet!"
He went away angrier than when he came, and Eldrick looked atCollingwood and shook his head.
"I don't see what more there is to do," he said. "So far as I can makeout, or see, Pratt is within his rights. If Mrs. Mallathorpe liked toentrust her business to him, what is to prevent it? I see nothing at allstrange in that. But there is a fact which does seem uncommonly strangeto me! It's this--how is it that Mrs. Mallathorpe doesn't consult,hasn't consulted--doesn't inform, hasn't informed--her daughter aboutall this?"
"That," answered Collingwood, "is precisely what strikes me--and I can'tgive any explanation. Nor, I believe, can Miss Mallathorpe."
He felt obliged to go back to Normandale, and tell Nesta the result ofthe afternoon's proceedings. And having seen during his previous visithow angry she could be, he was not surprised to see her become angrierand more determined than ever.
"I will not have Mr. Pratt coming here!" she exclaimed. "He shall notsee my mother--under my roof, at any rate. I don't believe she sent forhim."
"Mr. Eldrick saw her letter!" interrupted Collingwood quietly.
"Then that man made her write it while he was here!" exclaimed Nesta."As to the relationship--it may be so. I never heard of it. But I don'tcare what relation he is to my mother--he is not going to interfere withher affairs!"
"The strange thing," said Collingwood, as pointedly as was consistentwith kindness, "is that your mother--just now, at any rate--doesn't seemto be taking you into her confidence."
Nesta looked steadily at him for a moment, without speaking. When shedid speak it was with decision.
"Quite so!" she said. "She is keeping something from me! And if shewon't tell me things--well, I must find them out for myself."
She would say no more than that, and Collingwood left her. And as hewent back to Barford he cursed Linford Pratt soundly for a deep andunderhand rogue who was most certainly playing some fine game.
But Pratt himself was quite satisfied--up to that point. He had won hisfirst trick and he had splendid cards still left in his hand. And he wasreckoning his chances on them one morning a little later when a ring athis bell summoned him to his office door--whereat stood NestaMallathorpe, alone.